The room where the interviews took place for the most powerful unelected job
in Britain could not be described as salubrious.

Three panjandrums from Whitehall and the Bank of England sat with a secretary
around teak-effect wooden tables that had been pushed together.

The venue for the interviews for the next Governor of the Bank of England — a
shabby government office waiting to be sold — remains secret even now,
underlining the confidentiality that shrouded an ultimately pointless
process.

Perhaps the low-key room was simply a reflection of the desire that the
interviews of Sir John Vickers, Lord Burns of Pitshanger,